Nikola Tesla Timeline - Legend, magician, sorcerer

Added: (Sat Feb 11 2006)

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Legend, magician, sorcerer, time traveler, or simply an extraordinary scientist who was just way ahead of his time. Nikola Tesla, born in 1856 was one of the most mysterious persons to walk on the earth.

Legend has it that he was born during an electrical storm at the stroke of midnight. His magical inventions (over 100 years ago) that amazed his fellow scientists, included wireless transmission, remote control systems, an earlier version of florescent lights, the electric motor, AC power, radar, and numerous others. As a sorcerer, he created man-made lightning that terrorized the communities near his workshops. Some speculate he was a time traveler, because how else could a man change Thomas Edison’s electrical power ideas from deadly and hazardous to the safe systems we all use today. And let’s not forget to mention his patents that became the basics for computers, cell phones, television, as well as the beginnings of the X-ray machine.

Amazingly, in 1898, Tesla demonstrated a wireless controlled boat, with the world’s first remote control device that eventually became the basics for military weapons including the star wars program in space. He was unable to interest the military at the time, but when he died in 1943, the FBI ordered the Office of Alien Property to seize all of Tesla's papers and possessions although he had been a U.S. citizen since 1891.

He became obsessed with interplanetary communication, for which he was laughed at, but his work is now fundamental to NASA communications and project SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.

He told people he possessed the scientific ability to split the Earth in two, and in an article printed in the New York Times he claimed he had invented a death ray which he called the Teleforce, which could melt an airplane's engine from a range of 250 miles.
The military ignored him at the time, but years later the military spent enormous amounts of money and energy trying to reproduce the technology of Tesla's inventions.

The Tesla Coil is one of his most talked about inventions involving both fact and fiction. In 1894, Tesla generated 1,000,000 volts using a conical air-core Tesla Coil. The experiments later achieve16 foot discharges of lightning in his New York City lab. That’s ONE MILLION VOLTS in 1894. Tesla knew that the earth could conduct electricity, and that the electricity vibrates around the world in waves through the planet. He proved this by forcing massive amounts into the ground and lighting 200 lights without wires 25 miles away.

Similar experiments in Colorado Springs are well documented and some have become folklore. People walking near his lab, would feel sparks from the ground. A boy held a screwdriver near a fire hydrant and attracted a four inch electrical spark. There were reports that the grass around his lab would glow with a ghostly blue halo. He pushed his experiments to the extreme trying to find the limits and his device was now creating lightning bolts over 130 feet long.

His experiments in Colorado Springs ended memorably, especially for the utility company. His theorized that if he forced massive amounts of electrical current into the ground and it moves at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, then the wave would reach the other side of the planet and bounce back in 1/30th of a second. To intensify this experiment he would wait for the charge to return and then he would strengthen the wave with another charge and send it back through the earth again and repeat this over and over. The testing was cut short as it triggered the local power company’s generator to be set on fire and caused a blackout over several miles.

After getting kicked out of Colorado Springs, he wanted to complete these tests and push it even further. He set up shop near the Long Island community of Shoreham, New York. The Wardenclyffe tower was registered as Tesla's U.S. Patent No. 1,119,732 an Apparatus For Transmitting Electrical Energy. It was the three-coil magnifying transmitter that started in Colorado and later became the basis of rumor tied forever to the Philadelphia Experiment. Although legend has it that Einstein and Tesla were behind that famous experiment that made a navy ship disappear and move through time, the fact is that Tesla died at the age of 87, six months before that event took place.

The research of Tesla and his connection to Einstein finds both fact and fiction which was the geneses for the book - Maddy’s Secret: The Search for Einstein’s Lost Work.
www.Amazon.com , www.barnesandnoble.com , www.authorsden.com/rigby

The Nikola Tesla Timeline …
* Nikola Tesla was born to Serbian parents as a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Lika on July 10th, 1856, in what is now known as Croatia.
* 1875 - Tesla begins technical schooling in Graz, Austria and learns to speak 5 languages fluently, while being able to converse in 9.
* 1880 - Tesla begins working for the American Telephone Company in Budapest and suffers a nervous breakdown.
* 1882 - Tesla conceives of AC induction motor. He sees the rotating fields in a vision, and then he meticulously details the construction of both single and polyphase motors in his notebook. Tesla begins working for Continental Edison in Paris, France, helping them to resolve problems with their DC dynamos.
* 1884 - Fleeing from war, Tesla arrives in New York at age 28 and begins working for Thomas Edison to improve Edison's DC dynamos. Edison promises to pay Tesla $50,000 if he can improve the DC dynamo’s performance.
* 1885 – Tesla succeeds beyond Edison’s expectations, but Edison reneges on his promise to pay Tesla $50,000 for improvements to his dynamos, saying he was just joking - Tesla resigns in disgust.
* 1886 - Tesla launches Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing, but the financial backers, Robert Lane and B. A. Vail, are unable to comprehend the technological advances and refuse to fund Tesla's AC Motor, and they fire Tesla.
* 1887 - Once thought impossible, Tesla builds the first AC Induction Motor, the world's first brushless 2 phase 1/5 Horse Power AC motor. Tesla files key worldwide patents, locking the rights to the invention and makes a strategic deal with George Westinghouse to manufacture them.
* The electric war between Edison’s DC power and Westinghouse’s AC power proves Tesla’s design is better and much safer and becomes the world’s standard.
* In 1891, Tesla builds his own experimental laboratory and lights evacuated tubes with no wires, demonstrating WIRELESS power transmission.
* In 1892, Tesla discovers X-RAY RADIATION three years before they are rediscovered by Willhelm Roentgen. Also in the same year, the first Polyphase Power System is installed and Tesla is granted 40 patents, thereby locking in his rotating magnetic field principles and polyphase power distribution.
* In 1893, Tesla demonstrates a Wireless Transmitter/Receiver system (RADIO) in St. Louis two years before Marconi's first demonstration.
* Westinghouse and Tesla provide AC power to light the 1893 Chicago's World's Fair. (In anger, Edison forbids the use of his light bulbs).
* Tesla generates 1,000,000 volts using a conical air-core Tesla Coil. He later achieves 16 foot discharges (lightning) in his New York City lab. That’s ONE MILLION VOLTS in 1894.
* In 1895, Tesla harnesses Niagara Falls, the 1st commercial 2-phase power plant, built by Westinghouse, designed to deliver power to the industries of Buffalo, NY.
* Also in 1895, fire completely destroys Tesla's laboratory, ruining his life’s work. Some say his early experiments with what others would call death rays, probably was the cause.
* In 1898, Tesla demonstrates a wireless controlled boat. But, he is unable to interest the military. He also develops an electric igniter for Gasoline Engines, the ignition coil, basically the same automobile ignition system used today.
* In 1899, Tesla begins his Colorado Springs research with WIRELESS TRANSMISSION of messages and electrical power. Frightening stories of Tesla’s experiments with man-made balls of lightning being projected from his lab, and citizens being electrocuted from unknown sources still remain today.
* In 1900, Tesla begins building the Wardenclyffe Transmitter, a 200 KW system, helped funded by $150,000 from J. Pierpont Morgan. Tesla’s intentions are to intensify his Colorado Springs experiments, but he tells Morgan the system is strictly for global radio communication, and purposely hides its other objectives. Later that year he was issued patents for methods of transmitting wireless energy.
* In 1903, his patents #723,188 and #725,605, contain the basic principles of the logical AND circuit element basic to all computers.
* In 1904, Marconi is awarded the patent for radio and Tesla begins his fight as the original inventor.
* In 1906, Tesla creates the 200 hp, 16,000 RPM Bladeless Turbine.
* In the financial panic of 1907, Westinghouse struggles and asks Tesla to release them from paying royalties on every induction motor they make. They also convince Tesla to sell his royalty rights to Westinghouse for $216,000, (worth millions at the time) and the Westinghouse Company survives.
* 1908 - A massive blast occurs in the Tunguska region of Siberia that exploded with a force of 10 to 40 megatons of TNT and devastated 2,000 square kilometers of forest. Initial reaction was that a meteor was responsible, although ground zero was investigated with no sign of an impact crater. Some believe it was the result of a Tesla experiment gone horribly wrong, or right, depending on your point of view.
* In 1909 Marconi wins the Nobel Prize for his invention of the Radio. Tesla is furious that Marconi got the prize, and intensifies his long battle to correct the injustice.
* In 1910, Tesla's 100-5000 HP bladeless turbines are tested in Waterside Power Station, New York
* In 1915, Tesla signs over the Wardenclyffe deed to George Boldt, proprietor of the Waldorf-Astoria, to pay a $20,000 debt, and to help fund his continuing lawsuit against Marconi.
* In 1916, Tesla declares bankruptcy, owes back taxes, is penniless and living on credit at the Waldorf-Astoria.
* In 1917, Irony prevails as Tesla receives the Edison Medal, the most prestigious honor the AIEE can bestow upon an engineer.
* In 1928, Tesla receives his last US patent (#113) at age 72, "Apparatus for Aerial Transportation" - similar to a helicopter or VTOL aircraft. He also had 221 World Patents and was involved with, or helped influence countless others.
* 1931, Tesla turns 75 and is honored by being on the cover of Time Magazine, and received congratulations from more than 70 pioneers in science and engineering including Albert Einstein.
* 1935 - 15 out of 16 of Marconi's Patent claims on the radio are invalidated by the Court of Claims and Tesla is acknowledged to have been prior inventor on these portions of Marconi's patent. But legal red tape drags on and is eventually reviewed by the US Supreme Court.
* 1943 - Tesla dies in room 3327 in the Hotel New Yorker on January 7, 1943 at the age of 87. The FBI orders the Office of Alien Property to seize Tesla's papers and possessions although Tesla was a U.S. citizen since 1891. The papers and scientific work were eventually released and inherited by Tesla's nephew, Sava Kosanovich, and are now housed in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
* 1944 - Tesla is finally awarded the Patent for Radio. The US Supreme Court confirms that Marconi’s patents infringed on Tesla's earlier designs, and Tesla finally wins … one year after his death.
* 1956 - The TESLA, a new unit of magnetic flux density in the metric system, is named in Nikola Tesla's honor. The new unit is equivalent to 10,000 Gauss.

The Museum of Nikola Tesla is in Belgrade, at 51 Proleterskih brigada street (at the corner of Proleterskih brigada and Prote Mateje streets). It was founded in 1952, and opened for visitors on October 20th, 1955.

Submitted by:Michael Charles Messineo

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